Letter From A Father Who Learned To Grow Up With His Daughter

Yesterday he was born and today, in a couple of hours, he is going to start university. Yesterday they told me that he was going to be a father, soon he was crawling and a few minutes ago he took his first driving school class. Yesterday he looked at us as someone who looks at gods and today as someone who looks at people who know each and every one of their defects, in depth. In between, only one night has passed, one night in which I have been thinking, spellbound, watching her grow …

Growing up at times, because others I have had to go out to work. In others, his brothers, mine, have needed me; my friends or my parents; his mother, I, I have also needed myself sometimes. I’ve been home late or no stories occurred to me. Thus, he left the age of made-up stories to begin to experience how reality can be infinitely more cruel, as well as charming.

Hopes of a father

Yesterday I had a lot of hopes pinned on her. Hopes that were all mine and about which she had not said anything. At least nothing more than pointing to the bottle when he was thirsty or filling his mouth with whatever he caught when he was hungry. Today my hopes are still mine, but the reality is that she has built hers and I have had to accept it. It is a process that has taken me all night.

I would have liked her to be a lawyer. Because I understand that they are people who lead a relaxed life, who are in an important position and who by their training acquire a sense of justice superior to most mortals. However, she has wanted to be a journalist.

But not of those that present the news, but of those that travel and tell wars and give voice to those great stories that are also anonymous. It scares me, so much so that at times it won’t let me sleep. While she looks at me with that face of having fallen in love with someone without hardly knowing him, but with her heart. As a father, that look, his look, also causes me pride.

Give up control

As a father, it has not been easy to give him control. I have always seen her smaller than she really was, more vulnerable, influenceable and innocent. I have also seen how many times he headed towards the cliff with all the determination in the world and I have had to allow him to do so, because as much as I would have liked to be his best teacher, there are lessons that only life teaches you or that you have to learn with others.

She is so pretty, so pretty lying down. I don’t know if she knows, but she is the most beautiful girl in the world. I told her many times and she smiled at me, then she turned red and finally answered me with a “Dad!” (Do not embarrass me).

It is very difficult for me to understand that battle that has begun against her body, to rescue from my memory those moments in which I also cared a lot about what boys and girls my age thought. Understand that to understand many times you have to remember, because in this exercise I have also encountered nostalgia and my eyes have blurred.

The discomfort that going to school could cause me with that horrible jacket, hand-sewn during my mother’s boredom and that stung like hell. I don’t know which jacket I have made her carry, it may even have been several. Perhaps it was those conservatory classes that I forced her to attend, until her detachment from music broke my will to make friends with the eighth and sixteenth notes. I couldn’t get her to like it, she scratched herself in front of me and I consoled myself thinking it was good for her.

I’ve noticed….

Now, if I were to start over, I don’t think I would force you to do so many good things for yourself. At least from the outside, without sharing them with you. I wish I could have realized how you looked at the ball when you were little and played soccer with you. Having been less aware of dangers and more of illusions. Not having been late many times. Having agreed to play before you gave up on me and found other girls to play with.

I would have liked to assume earlier that you were perfectly capable of sheltering yourself when you were cold, of eating when you were hungry. Because those were the needs you had in the beginning, but then no longer. Then what you needed was encouragement with all the projects that you started, answers with the doubts of your age, the company of someone who was not a director but support, comfort and encouragement. Maybe part of it was my role, maybe it’s part of being a father.

They say that emotions are magic … and that human beings can have so much that we are capable of experiencing several emotions at the same time. I feel sad because part of the time that we have not spent together will not come back. I suppose all parents feel the same at some point, but that doesn’t console me.

What it does, however, is that now when I see you fighting your own battles, I am proud that you face them honestly. How wrong or right are the ones you have decided and in which you have found passion. Watching you grow, I have understood that I wanted an easy life for you and that you want a happy life for yourself. I just hope you get it, and of course, that you share it with me.

PS: As you can see, today too, apart from being a father, I have started to be a bit of a journalist and I would like to finish this article and sign it with you at lunchtime.

Photos courtesy of Soosh